Performance Comparison: ETC S4WRD vs. HPL 575Wx

[STEVETERRY]

The following video may be of interest in comparing many aspects of the performance of a S4WRD LED Retrofit vs. the performance of a tungsten HPL 575Wx long-life lamp in the ETC Source Four (tm):

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=UL3bnxmIGnI

ST

 

[egilson1]

Thanks Steve. We were just doing a shoot out yesterday in our demo room. Units look nice.

 

[RickR]

I'd like to see a meter reading along side the video. Cameras are not eyes and I'm a numbers sort of person. Maybe a dimming curve chart would be easier?

I loved that you put skin in some of the colors.

 

[JChenault]

Steve
Thanks for post

I'm curious why there is such an fade curve discrepancy between the incandescent and the LED under DMX control. Was that a conscious decision and if so can you share the rationale?

 

[STEVETERRY]

I'd like to see a meter reading along side the video. Cameras are not eyes and I'm a numbers sort of person. Maybe a dimming curve chart would be easier?

I loved that you put skin in some of the colors.

Yes, but the problem is what that meter is measuring? Center beam candlepower? Sure, but that's not as important as total field lumens, which is difficult or impossible to measure with one spot meter reading.

Thanks for the comment on color--that's where ETC is living right now!

ST

 

[STEVETERRY]

Steve
Thanks for post

I'm curious why there is such an fade curve discrepancy between the incandescent and the LED under DMX control. Was that a conscious decision and if so can you share the rationale?

Those fade curves are not actually very far apart when measured. However, we did accept some compromises in the LED driver curve in order to achieve the relatively low cost of the S4WRD--which is a significant reduction in the LED transition cost for S4 owners. We argued (no, agonized!) over this for a long time, but in the end we realized that the product performance was well suited to its primary market--which is not a Broadway show or a major opera company--but more mainstream applications of Source Four.

Thanks for asking!

ST

 

[SteveB]

Impressive intensity and imaging. Color isn't bad and as with 'ye olden dayes of adjusting from T12 lamps to TH, you find a gel that works when R05 looks different.

Very impressed with DMX dimming.

Not impressed with RJ45 instead of 5 pin "industry standard" XLR.

Wondering if making the housing a bit longer and just including a new and longer yoke might have been considered to get that XLR connector(s).

 

[kicknargel]

I'd love to see a color spectrum comparison. Is the white more "peak-y?"

 

[gafftaper]

I'd love to see a color spectrum comparison. Is the white more "peak-y?"

In the shoot out I did, I felt it was close but the LED had a slightly flatter field.

 

[STEVETERRY]

Impressive intensity and imaging. Color isn't bad and as with 'ye olden dayes of adjusting from T12 lamps to TH, you find a gel that works when R05 looks different.

Very impressed with DMX dimming.

Not impressed with RJ45 instead of 5 pin "industry standard" XLR.

Wondering if making the housing a bit longer and just including a new and longer yoke might have been considered to get that XLR connector(s).

Key spec point: it had to pass through existing yoke. That drove a lot of other decisions.

ST

 

[SteveB]

Fully understand about the yoke, but I would have just supplied a longer yoke.

As point, a popular tool for electricians I see a lot of these days it's the Ultimate ratcheting (or not) tool, which will not fit under a yoke on a regular S4 ellipsoidal or Par, when the unit is pointed straight down/out, in line with the clamp. There's just not a lot of room and I often wish the yoke was a tad longer. It's not a game changer as my 8" c-wrench will work, just a built in design PITA.

Thus a longer yoke is not a bad idea anyway.

 

[theatricalmatt]

The Source Four Lustrs would really benefit from a longer yoke. (So would a S4 with a Seachanger, but that combo seems to be going to way of the dodo.) I'm kind of surprised ETC doesn't offer one as an after-market add-on, rather like the split yokes available for the ColorSource PARs.

 

[gafftaper]

The Source Four Lustrs would really benefit from a longer yoke. (So would a S4 with a Seachanger, but that combo seems to be going to way of the dodo.) I'm kind of surprised ETC doesn't offer one as an after-market add-on, rather like the split yokes available for the ColorSource PARs.

You can buy extra long yokes for Seachangers. I have 10 of them in my theater. I want to say they were made by City Theatrical, or perhaps even Seachanger themselves... it's been a while since I got them.

 

[MNicolai]

Fully understand about the yoke, but I would have just supplied a longer yoke.

Thus a longer yoke is not a bad idea anyway.

There are catwalks all over the world that have been designed on the basis of how tightly you can pack fixtures between the railings. A suddenly longer yoke is the difference between S4WRD being viable or not.

 

[SteveB]

There are catwalks all over the world that have been designed on the basis of how tightly you can pack fixtures between the railings. A suddenly longer yoke is the difference between S4WRD being viable or not.

Just to be argumentive, the majority of a conventional plot is not on catwalks, as well you can short yoke. As well we are taking maybe an inch & half, are you saying the consultant made the catwalks so tight that 1.5" matters ?

 

[MNicolai]

Not every theater has a consultant, and yes, especially cases where they use the top and mid rails both.

It also adds the cost of the yoke into every S4WRD and makes it less cost-competitive.

 

[SteveB]

Not every theater has a consultant, and yes, especially cases where they use the top and mid rails both.

It also adds the cost of the yoke into every S4WRD and makes it less cost-competitive.

The cost of my 3 to 5 pin adapters for High End fixtures is about $25 ea., so $50 per fixture added on. I'm guessing a 5 pin XLR to RJ45 is a bit cheaper, but as you need 2 for in and out, you are talking near the cost of a longer yoke yet get a fixture that takes 5 pin XLR. I'd take the longer yoke and go with 5 pin.

 

[MNicolai]

Almost nobody is going to do that. They're going to use CAT5E or CAT6 tactical cable, and quite frankly a lot of places won't even bother with tac cable. For a standard theater that may have 50-100 S4's in a plot in addition to whatever LED wash fixtures or movers they may have, they'll do a drop of DMX on 3 or 5-pin per electric and a drop of DMX on 8P8C. They won't dick around with adapters in and out of every fixture. Nobody is masochistic enough for that.

And as far as moving to the 8P8C connector goes, I'm surprised it's taken this long. DMX as we know it is very limiting. Max 32 devices per branch, only 512 channels per universe, proprietary nodes to DMX all over the place. Once the industry gets its head out of its butt and moves to ACN or whatever the post-DMX protocol is going to be, everything will be based on network-based control and CAT5E/CAT6/CAT6A cable will become even more ubiquitous to theaters than it already is. I'm sure that's got nothing to do with why ETC went this route, but it's certainly part of why I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Also remember the reasons that people don't like the S4 zooms. They're costly, and they're freaking gigantic. They yoke's get bent out of shape if you use them on booms and the 15/30's don't fit on meat racks built for standard S4's. They're more likely to get knocked around and beat up, and most people I've talked to said about this said they would rather have gotten more standard fixtures or extra lens tubes than getting zooms at a premium cost.

It also makes it a much harder pitch to large venues to give up their incandescent fixtures. If they have to pay hourly for all of their fixtures to get struck down and have their yokes replaced, it's more expensive and harder to justify the upgrade than it is if they can spend a little extra on UTP cables and hardly have to worry about the labor expenses associated with the retrofit.

Not everyone wants to pay more, size matters, and not everyone has free or $10/hr labor they can use to strike every fixture in the house and replace the yokes.

 

[SteveB]

, they'll do a drop of DMX on 3 or 5-pin per electric and a drop of DMX on 8P8C. They won't dick around with adapters in and out of every fixture. Nobody is masochistic enough for that.

We can go back and forth on this all day but the bottom line is we argued with manufacturers about the problem with 3 pin "DMX" and they pretty much finally listened and went to 5 or a mix of both. 5 Pin has been and is the industry standard for DMX transmission and I think ETC is making a huge mistake by going this route. As well we've known for years that RJ45 is a crappy connector and nobody's really come out with a great alternative except Ethercon, and we don't see that very often. Bitch is moving to Cat 5 and the required powered distribution is all fine and well except this unit doesn't use Net 3. It's DMX over an inferior connector.

As well, I have a in-place distribution for 5 pin. If I add Lustre 2's and D60, I still have 5 pin and will BE REQUIRED to put adapters on a fixture if it uses RJ45 and I choose to daisy. And who is not going to daisy. So what you're saying is I need a 2nd cable run to get to the RJ45 fixtures. That's just BS in my book.

And as note, I've been using assorted zooms for 30 years. I'm a road house with a rep plot that has about 80 S4 zooms in a 300 unit inventory. Love them. Never had bent yokes but don't put the 15/30's in a yoked out situation. I think ETC once made a balancing bracket or some such for this fixture but I've never needed it nor had issues focusing and staying focused. The typical response from visiting LD's is fine, can you make the image bigger/smaller ? (to the guy in the bucket). The labor saved in not changing barrels is in multitudes of hours. The unit is cheaper then a regular S4 with lens tubes to either side of the range ($489 for a 25/50 zoom vs. $319+$129+$129 for a 36deg. plus a 26 and 50 tubes =$577 at an on-line store) Most Euro LD's asks me how come we have them yet nobody else in the US does, when they are all over Europe. I've no answer.

 

[STEVETERRY]

We can go back and forth on this all day but the bottom line is we argued with manufacturers about the problem with 3 pin "DMX" and they pretty much finally listened and went to 5 or a mix of both. 5 Pin has been and is the industry standard for DMX transmission and I think ETC is making a huge mistake by going this route. As well we've known for years that RJ45 is a crappy connector and nobody's really come out with a great alternative except Ethercon, and we don't see that very often. Bitch is moving to Cat 5 and the required powered distribution is all fine and well except this unit doesn't use Net 3. It's DMX over an inferior connector.

As well, I have a in-place distribution for 5 pin. If I add Lustre 2's and D60, I still have 5 pin and will BE REQUIRED to put adapters on a fixture if it uses RJ45 and I choose to daisy. And who is not going to daisy. So what you're saying is I need a 2nd cable run to get to the RJ45 fixtures. That's just BS in my book.

And as note, I've been using assorted zooms for 30 years. I'm a road house with a rep plot that has about 80 S4 zooms in a 300 unit inventory. Love them. Never had bent yokes but don't put the 15/30's in a yoked out situation. I think ETC once made a balancing bracket or some such for this fixture but I've never needed it nor had issues focusing and staying focused. The typical response from visiting LD's is fine, can you make the image bigger/smaller ? (to the guy in the bucket). The labor saved in not changing barrels is in multitudes of hours. The unit is cheaper then a regular S4 with lens tubes to either side of the range ($489 for a 25/50 zoom vs. $319+$129+$129 for a 36deg. plus a 26 and 50 tubes =$577 at an on-line store) Most Euro LD's asks me how come we have them yet nobody else in the US does, when they are all over Europe. I've no answer.

Mr. Bailey--

You and I have known each other professionally for 35 years, plus or minus--just sayin'.

A few points:

1. I would venture to say that there has not been a stronger defender of the XLR-5 than me, over the last 20 years or so. See my previous articles on XLR3 vs. XLR5. But today, I see it as not so black-and-white, due to economic realities.

2. If RJ45 is such a "crappy connector", I wonder why we entrust many tens of thousands of channels of control to it--in the Ethernet world.

3. People ask me--"How can we tolerate a connector that breaks so much?" If true, I say "Use your primary troubleshooting tool--the garbage can where you throw defective RJ45 patch cords." Their ridiculously low cost encourages this action.

4. The S4WRD is not aimed at the high-end professional market. It's primarily aimed at places where a daisy-chained lighting position with 20 fixtures really does not care about RJ45 vs. XLR5--other than the fact that the XLR connectors add significant cost.

5. We are in a different world now--one created by LED luminaires. That creates new realities--such as the acceptability of RJ45 in low- cost DMX applications.

6. I suggest that if you analyze the cost, the use of RJ45's on an S4WRD daisy chain makes economic sense, despite the fact that it might cause us to initially recoil due to "non-standard" application. This is likely true even in a system with other equipment using XLR5 connectors--one that requires an RJ45 run in parallel with an XLR5 run.

7. I will take this opportunity to remind you that S4WRD represents an order-of-magnitude reduction in LED conversion costs. The reality is that there are compromises associated with that reduction. At the end of the day, the market will tell us if we did the right or the wrong thing.

I am sure that you, and others, will tell me how you feel on this issue!

Best regards,

ST